I’ve been following the antics of the Wall Street protesters over the last few weeks with a combination of amusement, pity, tolerance and disgust.

On one hand, their list of (cough) demands is so laughable that they defy logical response. Open-borders migration? Free college education? Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment? (That was probably the funniest.)

But I also feel some pity for these poor people. They can’t help what they feel. All their lives they’ve attended liberal bastions of progressive brainwashing (government schools) and have never been exposed to any diversity of thought or opinion, much less real-world experience. They’ve been thoroughly indoctrinated into socialistic ideals, slurping down the progressive agenda like candy.

And of course it’s wildly amusing to see protesters (many of whom come from wealthy backgrounds) attacking the very principles (free enterprise and capitalism) that allow them the luxury to protest while being supported by mommy and daddy, even as they demand greater government control and the elimination of free enterprise and capitalism. These are the kids who would be disappointed or even insulted if they had nothing under the Christmas tree – no new iPhone or Notepad or designer jeans or whatever. The hypocrisy of rich kids protesting riches is just toooo funny.

These kids are protesting because they’re being thrown into the cold cruel world where employers actually expect them to work in exchange for money. Or, thrown into a college environment where the schools want them to pay in exchange for their education. Ouch. No wonder they want “free college educations” and “a guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.”

Up to this point I’ve been fairly tolerant about the protesters because, surprisingly, I don’t necessarily disagree with everything they’re protesting. I certainly believe there is an incestuous and unholy alliance between corporations, bankers and government. But unlike the protesters, I prefer to place my blame squarely where it is most deserving: the government. Cut off those sweet and illegal government (meaning: taxpayer-funded) deals with Wall Street and bankers, and the “greedy” corporations would either go out of business or learn to behave themselves. There is no such thing as “too big to fail.”

But I am disgusted by the “support” the protesters are receiving. When the likes of Al Gore,Nancy Pelosi,Al Sharpton,Michael Moore and the SEIU get involved, I become alarmed. Now ACORN and union thugs are courting the protesters, turning them from naïve, deluded and misguided innocents into useful idiots of a dangerous communistic agenda.

By way of definition, a “useful idiot” is a person who enthusiastically embraces and fights for a cause he does not understand. The term was “invented in Soviet Russia to describe people who blindly supported the likes of Lenin and Stalin while they committed atrocity after atrocity,” according to Urban Dictionary. Today, it refers to brainwashed liberals and leftists, “usually college students that aren’t necessarily idiots, but just misinformed, naive, and ignorant of facts due to being indoctrinated with liberal/socialist propaganda through their public education.”

Stalin, if you recall, enlisted the aid of revolutionaries who supported his ideals; and when they had served his purpose and they no longer provided any useful aid, he had them systematically butchered. His policies and purges led to the death of more than 20 million Russians. Great legacy, eh?

You’d think useful idiots the world over would have learned from these harsh lessons of history, but no, they continue to gullibly swallow the progressive Kool-Aid and thereby qualify as today’s cannon fodder. In this they are influenced by the inaccurate revisionist history they are taught in government schools. Since these kids did not learn from history, they enthusiastically long to repeat it. These useful idiots will serve their progressive masters well until they are deemed expendable, after which they will either be figuratively or (God forbid) literally exterminated.

And now schoolteachers and even parents are bringing young children to witness and support the protests, thus planting the seeds for the next generation of useful idiots. Swell.

These protests are so valuable to the dark forces that are now controlling the actions, demands and purpose of the protesters. Yes, it’s true: These young people are coming over to the Dark Side of the Force.

I call it the Dark Side because this force – progressivism, socialism and ultimately communism – is antithetical in every way to the principles laid out in our Constitution. Up to this point the protesters have been comparatively innocent, the natural offshoot of a lifetime of privileged existence and socialist education. But now they’re being actively programmed by the Dark Side. These evil influences are altering the protesters’ lines of thinking and behavior into paths that ultimately will shape not only their future, but potentially the future of our nation as well.

But our modern Darth Vaders don’t paint it that way. They say they want to be “compassionate” and promote “equality” and “social justice.” What they don’t say is that these goals can only be achieved at the point of a gun and at the expense of freedom and liberty. It’s a seductive thing, this Dark Side, and the young and gullible are easily swayed by it, particularly after a lifetime of being spoon-fed government educational twaddle.

The ironic thing is, we have all the solutions to the woes inflicting this country. We have all the answers. We have the means to rid our nation of the greed and corruption of bankers, corporations and the vague “rich” who oppress the poor.

It’s called the Constitution.

But strictly following the literal rules of the Constitution isn’t likely to happen, because everybody likes getting something for nothing. And so … the Dark Side will likely win.

I pray these young protesters are not led further down the dark path of socialism. Going this route will not only damage them, it will damage the essence of our nation as laid down by our Founding Fathers and damage beyond repair future generations of young people who will fall under the foolish, dangerous, seductive sway of the Dark Side. Our nation – unique in the history of the planet – will degenerate into just another place where bureaucratic red tape is massive, governmental control is supreme and individual responsibility and initiative are gone.

By that point freedom will be dead. And then the useful idiots will wonder what happened.